Grantchester

"Ah God! to see the branches stir 

Across the moon at Grantchester! 

To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten 

Unforgettable, unforgotten 

River-smell, and hear the breeze 

Sobbing in the little trees. 

Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand 

Still guardians of that holy land? 

The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream, 

The yet unacademic stream

Is dawn a secret shy and cold 

Anadyomene, silver-gold? 

And sunset still a golden sea 

From Haslingfield to Madingley? 

And after, ere the night is born,

Do hares come out about the corn? 

Oh, is the water sweet and cool, 

Gentle and brown, above the pool? 

And laughs the immortal river still 

Under the mill, under the mill?

Say, is there Beauty yet to find? 

And Certainty? and Quiet kind? 

Deep meadows yet, for to forget 

The lies, and truths, and pain?... oh! yet 

Stands the Church clock at ten to three? 

And is there honey still for tea?" 

― Rupert Brooke, The Old Vicarage, Grantchester